Canadian charity working to improve neonatal survival in Guyana

In maintaining a rich history which dates back to early 2009, Guyana Help The Kids (GHTK) has once again extended a hand of collaboration to the Public Health Ministry, with the primary objective of reducing under-five mortality and by extension, infant mortality.

GHTK is a registered Canadian charity which has been playing an integral role in Guyana by assisting in the reduction of neonatal and infant mortality. Just recently, its President, Dr Narendra Singh, a Canadian-based Guyanese, paid a courtesy call to the newly appointed Health Minister, Dr George Norton, in which discussions were held on the five Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICUs) spread across the country within the public health system.

In an interview with Guyana Times International, Dr Singh said, contrary to reports published; only one of the five NICUs is not functioning at the moment. It was explained that due to a lack of medical and nursing personnel to operate the NICU at the West Demerara Regional Hospital, it has been out of operation for an extensive period. However, those at the Georgetown Public Hospital, the Linden Hospital Complex, the Suddie Hospital and the New Amsterdam Hospital are functioning effectively despite the need for additional staffing and consumable items.

This was confirmed by the Health Minister, who had previously told this newspaper that with the exception of Georgetown Public Hospital, all other NICUs were down. He has since retracted that statement.

Dr Singh acknowledged that the number of neonatal deaths quoted were not accurate, since it included still births and non-viable foetuses. He did, however, agree with the Minister that the numbers were too high and corrective measures need to be taken immediately.

Lack of staffing and

infection control

Lamenting on the issue of staffing, Dr Singh said the Health Ministry and by extension the Government of Guyana, needs to work assiduously to address this problem. But in addition to a shortage of medical personnel to man these units, infection remains a burning problem, particularly at GPHC, where there has been a surge in number of deaths.

“We need to fix that immediately, we need to identify the source of the infections and put systems in place to prevent it,” he said, while emphasising the need to have infection control procedures in place.

In Guyana, neonatal deaths account for approximately 50 per cent of the under-five mortality, but these figures are reducing with the installation of NICUs.

This is so because NICUs provide specialise care for prematurely born babies (neonates) who are not fully developed and are unable to survive on their own without the assistance of monitoring equipment, incubators and breathing apparatus. The neonatal period in Guyana is considered to be from 28 weeks gestation to the first 28 days of life.

Since the re-commissioning of the 24-bed NICU at the Georgetown Public Hospital in 2012 by GHTK and the Public Health Ministry, tremendous progress has been made in the area of neonatology.